In these papers, inspired by the approach of Charles Peirce, is developed a triadic semiotic; yet it leads beyond his thinking. Following Peirce's insight that the interpretation of a sign always implies the creation of new signs it is oriented as well and more by his categories than by his semeiotic and thus becomes a generative semiotic. It can explain the evolutive character of most to everything.

There is a difference in emphasis between Peirce's and my aproach which can easily further misunderstanding if terms are not used exactly. My accent is on the mediating Interpretant as a component of semiosis that binds the Referent (roughly comparable to Peirce's Object) and the Presentant (comparable to Peirce's representamen or sign in the narrow sense). In process view the latter results from semioses and incorporates the triadic process of Semiosis in a structure called Semion. The semion can be a lasting state of affairs which can enter the evolution of other semioses, be it as a Referent or as an Interpretant.

Thus the evolutive-generative semiotic describes the very different-looking processes in the ecological function circle or spiral which binds living beings into their Umwelt: reception (IntrO), action (ExtrO), inner-organismic or psychical (IntrA) as well as the environmental, in the particular the cultural procedures (ExtrA).Generative semitic is pertinent to processes of historic structure formation and maintenance including their demise. Insofar triadic semiotic conceives

This paper presents essentials of a generative form of semiotic and applies it to questions of the constitution and analysis of time. By emphysizing the generative rather then the interpretative aspect of semiosis it attempts to improve the practicability of Charles Peirce's triadic-semeiotic thinking and his Thirdness category. By including the conservating and the generalizing potentials of semiosic structures (called semions) it aspires at an universal conception of mediated causation or condition-effect-connection which pertains to all phenomena of evolutive change. This form of semiotic, in particular, is apt to describe the becoming, the change and the dissolution of:

• organic or organismic systems in their continuing exchange with their environment (phylogenesis, bioevolution);

• learning individual organisms in their experience dependant life course within their world, in humans in particular of persons in their culture (ontogenesis, individual evolution);

• social systems or groups of all kinds in their waxing and waning within their milieu, in humans in particular of cultures and their diversification (cultural change, cultural evolution).

Development or evolution is to mean that systematic, yet both diverging and converging, i.e. regular and at the same time contingent, change of a system with its framing system; when viewed retrospectively change proves to be historically singular and thus it emerges prospectively open. In contradistinction to the time conception of physical science, evolutive systems are genuinely temporal; for evolution of any concrete system, in every present moment, "cristallizes" one only out of its many possible futures into its unique real past (see Lang 1997).

There exist surprising structural commonalities on the said three orders of evolution and in spite of their diverse manifestations. If semiotic is to be among other things a general procedure for comparison of different sciences, then it should exactly prove capable in probing commonalities between various developing systems. For this we need:

• a general concept of semiosis in process-perspective, and founding change;

• a corresponding concept of structure (called the semion) in state-perspective, and providing for memory or conservation of something for later use;

• both of which are then brought into a common perspective of reciprocating process and structure which can constitute evolution and time,

So part (I) will be dedicated to unfolding semiotic ecology from the content side. The leading idea here is the ecological function circle, i.e. the semiosic interchange of concrete living beings and similar systems with their environment with the effect of mutual transformation. In part (II) the conception of the elementary semiosic units in process (triadic semiosis) and state view (the semion) and their intercourse are presented. Reference to Peirce is made and a decisive distinction allowing for the generative character of semiosis is pointed out. Part (III) particularizes semiotic ecology in view of the constitution and analysis of time in evolutive systems. This is one of many examples demonstrating the heuristic efficacy of generative semiotic in conjunction with the ecological function circle. Usually, we say development to happen "in" time and therewith presuppose time to exist independently. The idea that any developing system produces its propers time by its very process though finds increasing support. Semiotic concretization of this idea may lead to better understanding of time.

The following line of argumentation may give an idea of the the kind of problem and solution embarked upon by semiotic ecology in the present context.

Presentday models of semiosis are dominantly of a communication theoretical character and thus suffer from the fact that their component parts (receiver, medium, message, sender, etc.) must be presupposed in spite of being themselves in need of being explained. Perhaps those might best be conceived of in semiotic terms rather than being taken over metaphorically from technical devices. In a second and independent prerequisite, this common conception also simply presupposes space and time as a framework of semiosis. However, in communcation-theory semiotics time is of no avail; it is only the material events in the communication channel which "take" some time to run and "transport" over space. All of today's concepts of sign or of meaning abstract thoroughly of time and space. At most, diachrony or change over time of sign system or sign use is investigated. The only factual temporal implication of sign concepts is their (ordinal) directedness in time, in that no sign can effect upon its past; but they do not respect neither "flow" nor "density" of time. Nominally, the tempora of linguistic signs relate to time; they deeply contradict scientific time conceptions.

All of this is less than satisfying in view of the fact that living beings to such an astonishing extent constitute their proper time and space systems that are more than ordinal and that are so highly coordinated among each other and with environmental conditions such as yearly, lunar, or diurnal oscillations and their consequnces. It is even utterly disturbing in view of the estimation that sign processes may or must play an absolutely central role in all evolutive ongoings. For any evolution requires something which arises at one time can play again a role at a later time. Yet this cannot necessarily be that something itself, but will often be some representation thereof. For an example the relation between the genom and the organism in bioevlution may be considered, or the representation in history of some earlier experience which can influence cultural change.

Such insights definitely suggest the development of a conception of semiotic of genuinely temporal nature. If the sign process is emancipated from its interpretative lockup by embracing and building upon Peirce's idea that any interpretation of a sign must consist in the creation of a further sign, we can direct our attention towards the generation of signs instead of towards the interpreation of pre-existings signs or of signs declared to be signs by the very act of their being interpreted. It is in this perspective that our conception of elementary semiosis and the new concept of the semion are proposed; the place the generative character of sign processes and of sign worlds absolutely central. By this they seize the possibility to no longer treat of structure and dynamics separately and additively, to no longer think of a passive-object-like sign and an active-subjekt-natured interpreter; instead, following the model of matter- and energy-sciences, it becomes possible to conceive of process and structure, of sign and meaning, as two aspects of one single reality.

Thus a mode of treating of sign characters is proposed which does not attempt to analize and systematize a selected and isolated range of phenomena (because this leads to islands of separate understanding). Instead we shall understand as being of semiosic character whatever can mediate between two phenomena. The world is, in fact, full of situations that cannot be dealt with in terms of necessary determination of an effect by a single cause. In developing a triadic condition-effect conception suitable for describing what happens in evolutive systems we find that this not only accounts for the evolutive process in general, but in addition as well for the constitution of time.

Semiosis thus is thought of as a general notion of causation or condition-effect-conception. Of sign-character are all entities which emerge as a third from the encounter of two other entities (of sign-character) and which can themselves enter such transactive encounters and thus can generate new sign structure. The concept of elementary semiosis presents this triadic relation in the process-view, the concept of semion conceives of it as the logical effect-connex implied in more or less enduring structures which can preserve some effect potential over time and can allow for its transportation over space. This generative or semion-semiotic thus constitutes directed and ordinal temporality and it can explain the present as the separation between the past and the future of a system. In applying this idea on oscillating systems and entities in general which run through intrinsic changes of state, we also have found a semiotic constituent of biotic, psychic, and cultural time in the triple sense of periodicity, of extensive duration, and of the distinction between past, present and future.

Questions are raised about commonalities, mutual offerings and possible influences between psychology and semiotics. These two fields of thought and research seem to share largely similar interests, yet their relationship appears less than optimal. Four different approaches to semiotics are briefly outlined: they emphasize, respectively, the sign as object, as meaning, its use, and its effects. The latter aproach is elaborated, starting from the framework of Peircean semiotics, to focus on the sign process and, in particular,its effects in the evolution of the biotic and cultural world; semiosis here is understood as a general type of causation and particularly suitable for use in psycho-ecological problems. A dialogue between a psychologist and a semiotician is used for comparing and contrasting fundamental ideas of semiotics and psychology that might interplay with each other. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of a semiotic understanding of the concepts of "person" and "self".

The paper proposes to a general public a psychologically practicable version of semiotics. Building upon Charles S. Peirce`s general logic, a triadic semiosis model is sketched and illustrated which emphasizes the role of semiosis to build, in endless developing chains or nets of semiosic conditions and effects, familiar and new representant structures on the basis of existing referent and interpretant structures. Looking at humans developing in a given and changing world, such structures are continually formed both within the person (as a personal mind-brain) and in the environment (as culture in so far such structure formations are largely recursive within a group of people). The conception of a four-phased function circle semiotically elaborating Jakob von Uexkuell`s and Kurt Lewin`s ecological ideas allows to construe, in the same semiotic concepts, of acting and perceiving as well as of innerpsychological and extrapersonal or cultural processes. Internally or externally formed semiosic structures fulfill largely equivalent functions for an acting and developing individual. The present conception proposes semiosis as a general form of causation to deal with developing systems; it embraces traditional necessity conceptions as a special case. Also, the semiosic model proffered appears to be more general than traditional concepts of the sign as object and meaning or common communication models of semiosis.

It is suggested that psychology and semiotics, both being growth fields claiming central roles in the concert of sciences, have much in common and also have both to offer considerably to mutual benefit. Four varieties of semiotics are briefly described, viz. the study of signs as objects, as meaning, as means of communication, and from the point of view of their effects. The latter is elaborated in that it might be seen as proposing a general concept of causation more suitable for use in psychological and psycho-ecological problems than the traditional necessity idea of determination. An new elementary semiotics is sketched by developing Charles S. Peirce´s triadic semiosis concept with the help of psychological constructs such as Jakob von Uexküll´s function circle and Kurt Lewin´s genetic series concept. Perception and action, intra-psychological processes as well as culture and cultivation can be construed with the same conceptual tools. A non-Cartesian view of the subject and self as emerging rather than presupposed entities becomes feasible.

This paper was th first systematic attempt to introduce a renewed and definitely non-dualistic semiotic (later termed "generative") on the basis of Peirce as a conceptual tool. The emphasis is on the semiosic process. The concepts of formation and structure, anaformation are elaborated. Mention is also made of their potential role in constituting ecosystems. The Ms. has been distributed among colleagues in 1991 but was temporarily lost in AL's files.